


What the Fuck, Taako?

by InterNutter



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Companion Piece, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 20:40:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12779085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterNutter/pseuds/InterNutter
Summary: Lup sees her brother acting... very strange. Macaroons are easy. So why is he acting like it's a fate worse than death?What HAPPENED to him?





	What the Fuck, Taako?

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The McElroys practically own my soul at this point. They certainly own my muse.
> 
> Companion piece to _Drought Breaker_ as seen here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/12460278

It was the middle of the night, but Taako was awake. Not sleepwalking. He had changed into his daywear. Lup might have guessed it was another bout of insomnia, but this was… different.

He was nervous. Anxious. She could feel him shaking through the handle of the Umbrastaff as he let her loop onto his arm.

This was strange. Even for him. Especially for the way he was now.

Lup had realised after a while that something had gone wrong with his memory. Maybe he’d been clouted on the head or something. She was still working on a way to remind him of her. Strike a chord. So far, he had not noticed her efforts.

Maybe tonight, she could learn something.

He was afraid, but he was going to do something. Something he’d had to work himself up to do. Something he dreaded.

And he was heading into the kitchen?

Lup watched in utter confusion. He was lining up all the stuff to make macaroons. And some kind of salt-shaker? No. Wait. A low-sodium salt shaker. A magical device to detect poison.

And five litres of the worst rotgut ever made by intelligent life.

“Taako…” she said. “What the fuck?”

She watched. What else could she do? Something was bothering her brother and it was something enormous. Something had wrecked him.

Taako took her Umbrastaff off his arm and hung it at the furthest possible point from where he was working. “Listen. I know you’re like… a little bit alive or something. I know you want to help me. But this…” he gestured back at the kitchen, “is a no-magic zone. I need it to be a no-magic zone. That means you stay there and just fucking chill. Okay? No magic. Comprende?”

Trapped inside, Lup could only scream. “What do you mean, no magic? Magic and food go together like peanut butter and jelly! Like peaches and cream! That’s what you always said about it. What the actual fuck happened to you? No magic in the kitchen? Who are you and what did you do to my  _ brother _ ?”

It was hyperbole. This was Taako. She’d felt his soul and he was no impostor. But this? This was beyond out of character for him.

He chugged a glass of rotgut. Shuddered. Braced himself on the oven and said,  “It’s this or the Candlenights feast, Koko. We can do this.”

What.

The.

Fuck.

“Taako, you fucking  _ love _ doing the Candlenights feast… It’s like all the pastries your sweet fucking tooth ever ate  _ and _ all the fucking garlic and ginger you can cram into anything. It’s your wet fucking dream.”

Koko didn’t hear her. He was busy milling almonds by hand. By hand! “Oh the labor” Taako. Milling almonds by hand. Lup was sure he knew how on a technical basis, but seeing him actually doing it? And raising a sweat?

“Who hurt you, Koko?” Lup demanded. But there was no answer.

All she could do was answer yes-or-no questions by hitting him. Not the best for this situation. She ached to comfort him, to smack some sense into his thick skull. To tell him that none of his magic could do what he evidently thought it could do.

But no. She was stuck here and screaming at him for all of the nonsensical shit that was going on in front of her.

“You just fucking tasted those before you milled them! They don’t need testing  _ again _ !’

“Those. Are. Egg. Whites. They literally can not be poison!”

“It’s fucking sugar! Just sugar!”

“Koko, no! Don’t add more fucking salt after you mixed it!”

“It’s fucking fresh gods-damned  _ cream _ ! Fucking  _ chill _ !”

“That’s half a fucking cup of fucking lo-sodium salt, Koko. E-fucking-nough!”

“It’s good. You know it’s good. You can fucking  _ see _ it’s good! LEAVE IT ALONE!”

“Slow down with the fucking booze, you lush!”

“You reach for that salt shaker again, I swear to fucking god…”

“What the actual  _ fuck _ , Taako?!”

It was Magnus who provided at least half an answer. When Taako actively screamed and tried to protect the fighter from his innocent, badly a-salted macaroons. Magnus picked her brother up in a huge hug. Telling him that he did good. Reassuring him.

The rest of the answer came at the office candlenights party. When Taako was passing out macaroons everywhere and Lup was silently thanking the Gods that the half cup of fucking low-sodium salt in them had no flavour.

She recognised a bowdlerised version of a Taako story when she heard one. And she could hear the painful way he danced around the word ‘poison’ and anything related to death.

Oh shit.

Oh fucking shit.

He thought he could  _ do _ that? And he  _ believed _ it?

Taako should have known in an instant that it wasn’t his fault. He was such a fucking perfectionist with his meals that he wouldn’t  _ allow _ a spell to go wrong like that.

“Bro, I have bad news for you,” she said. “Now I know for  _ sure _ that something’s gone wrong in your dome-piece. Someone’s messed with your noggin, big time.” She made the Umbrastaff’s handle clench tight to his arm. The closest she could get to hugging him.

Until he remembered her and where she was.

“What’s it going to take, huh?” she argued at the curtains. “Big, fiery let--” Oh…

Oh!

That might just work.

 

END!


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